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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently